Discovery & Research · master area
Interview Technique
The after tool, not the during tool. Anchored to specific moments observed. Asks "what was that thing you did at 09:14?" — never "what is hard about your job?"
Owners: PO, Designer Phase it lives in: Before We Build (Volume II) The corpus principle this enacts: Witnessed, not described.
Where it lives in the chain
- Before We Build · Observation — interview is the follow-up
How to do this
The interview is never the first or only research method. It is what follows observation:
- Observe first. Time-stamped notes from sitting next to the person.
- Identify anchors. Pick 3–5 specific moments from the observation. "09:14 — you opened the spreadsheet but didn't enter data. 11:02 — you stopped to write something on a sticky note."
- Schedule the follow-up. Ideally same day; within a week at the latest.
- Ask anchored questions only. "What was that thing you did at 09:14?" The person tells the story you couldn't see from your seat — why they opened that spreadsheet, what they were checking, what they decided.
What to never ask
- "What's hard about your job?" — produces complaints, not insight.
- "What features would you like?" — produces solution-shaped wish-lists.
- "Why?" in the abstract — produces post-hoc rationalisation.
- "Wouldn't it be great if…?" — produces polite agreement.
Each of these collects description instead of witness. The interview's job is to make sense of what was observed, not to replace observation.
What good practice looks like
A 30-minute follow-up interview, anchored to one morning of observation, produces:
- Confirmation of what the team thought it saw — "yes, that hesitation at 09:14 was me checking whether the prior period was reconciled."
- Correction of what the team misread — "actually, the sticky note was unrelated to grading — it was a reminder to call my daughter's school."
- Vocabulary the team didn't have — "we call that the 'late reconcile' — it happens when a payment comes in after the close-of-day batch."
- Workarounds the person has stopped noticing — "oh, I always do that — I email myself the totals so I can check tomorrow."
The interview output goes into the brief alongside the observation notes. Together they form the witnessed truth the brief is built on — not separately, not interchangeably.
Related crafts
- Observation / Field Research — the upstream practice
- Assumption Surfacing — what interview helps move from "not witnessed" to "witnessed"